Flames
by ForeverandNevermore
Summary: Hardenshipping. Death always strikes those who have the most tender of hearts. Luckily, he's got someone to comfort him. Japanese names used. Rated M for safety, though I'm unsure of whether this is T or M. Based off of VAST's Flames


**A/N: **I own nothing, hence this being Fanfiction. Japanese names are used simply because I dislike the English ones.

Rate and Review, please?

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_No words were spoken that night. No sound but the storm's wrath echoed throughout the room. _

The door shut, lightning making an ominous silhouette of his frame. The thin man nearly limped into the apartment, holding his arms, shivering.

The shower he took was longer than what seemed necessary, as if he wished to wash away sin with the grime on his face and hands. Through steam, he seemed to cleanse himself of the past. The water scorched his scars, drowned his fears, swallowed his soul.

The room was cold when he ended his shower. The air froze his wet hair and caused it to cling to his face. He combed it back thoroughly; the damp strands sticking to each other. Though so cold, he merely slipped on a pair of pants he had left in the bathroom from the night before, and though they were technically dirty and incredibly stiff from a day of lying in a heap, they seemed so welcome to his freezing legs.

An aura of warmth struck him as he entered the only bedroom. Thunder rumbled as he felt the warmth envelop him; a single flash of lightning proved to him that the one who had an arm around him was who he thought it was. There was only that insight before he gave himself up to the man behind him.

_Close your eyes_

The figure was everything he wasn't, besides the fact that neither of them were truly fully clothed. He was tall, muscular, and wonderfully warm, and he smelled of salt and chlorine. He felt odd at how mismatched they were; the shorter, thinner, weaker man whose only warmth pounded in his feverish forehead and the typical tall, dark, and handsome man whose muscular embrace was enough to wake him from even the deepest coma. It was as if Fate herself had a cruel way of mocking him.

From behind his back, there was an almost unnoticeable shift in weight as the other's rough fingertips stroked porcelain neck.

_Let me touch you now_

More lightning split the sky, reflecting tears as they fell from ruby sockets. That was proof enough. Proof that the past never dies.

His heart stopped beating for a second. Long enough for the memories to flood back and rip at his wounded heart like a pack of Gureana.

Gureana. Mei had been more than just another Gureana to him. She was a partner, a pet, a _child_ to him. It was as if he had cremated his own child and buried her ashes. It was proof enough to him that life can be lost so, so easily. Proof that the mind can take away life itself. But the presence behind him was a reminder that memories were merely memories. Fleeting visions of the past. The only real thing was the one who loved him so.

_Let me give you something that is real_

He turned around, finding the man's lips with his own. They were softer than in his thousands of memories and millions of dreams, as if he had altered for the man's sorrow. His mouth was slightly open, and he shorter wedged his upper lip into the tiny space, nearly sucking of his bottom lip.

The sweet taste of sake and cigarettes took the other man completely by surprise. Matsubusa was the silent but affectionate type, surely not as seductive as the man in front of him. But it was the man in front of him that he so loved, and he had heard that grief can change the way a person acts. And the man had been through so much...

He had little choice but to return the affection, toeing the door closed as he did.

_Close the door_

Their movements were like a waltz, never breaking, spinning in the confusion of love until collapsing on the bed, first Matsubusa, followed by a broken off Aogiri. The former rolled onto the latter's chest, nuzzling the gap between his heart and his heart and arm with a frozen nose.

Tears returned as if on cue. With them reared the ugly head of pessimism, along with a thought which struck fear into his very core. _What if you leave me?_

_Leave your fears behind_

As the hot tears seeped into his skin, Aogiri stroked his lover's head. His hair was like cold silk, his back like marble. Lightning illuminated the room, and it was the very same silken floss that now looked more red than blood as it lay in serpentine coils on his milk-white back. As he twirled a lock of it between his fingers, the owner of it pulled himself up, not without Aogiri noticing the way his feline muscles contracted as he did so, and touched their foreheads lightly. The slightly younger man's stubble tickled his cheeks as he pushed their faces close, inhaling the pungent scent of sickness along with the gentler lavender and chamomile, and flipped the positions. The warmth on Matsu's forehead flushed to his face and gut as the other man gently unbuttoned his pants.

_Let me give you what you're giving me_

There was a difference between love and friendship. Aogiri knew this. It had been friendship that kept them together as children. But now, it was love that he felt, unadulterated love. The feeling alone was enough to make him burst as he came in for another kiss.

There was also a noticeable difference between love and lust. To this, Matsubusa had no clue as to what he should do. Lust was a sin, the craving of the body. Love was a virtue, the craving of the heart. It was at that moment that both arose like magma in the volcano that was himself. Lust caught him kissing back. Love reminded him of the truth.

He was a man who lost everything. There seemed to be no need for a failure like him. He wasn't living for forgiveness, for the realization that he was a fool was too late. He wasn't living for knowledge, for any discovery he made would be deemed the work of a madman. He had no one left to speak of, with the death of his beloved Gureana and mere memories of his mother.

No. He was living for someone. He was living for Aogiri.

_You are the only thing_

_That makes me want to live at all_

The feeling that had been forgotten for so many years had returned, a feeling that had been adulterated with hatred but was now allowed to thrive within his heart. The feeling was that which he could not describe, like a fire in his very soul. _That_ was the difference between love and lust, that beautiful yearning was not of merely the body, but of his very essence of being. The epiphany was enough to make him want to die of happiness, happiness in one of his biggest moments of grief since the murder of his mother.

Tears flowed freely as he grasped the back of Aogiri's head, pulling the two even closer, making the kiss even deeper. One hand grasped his hip as another slinked around to support his arched back. There was a fire in his forehead from fever, a fire in his gut from the lust, and the flames of love that had him nearly gouging his lover's mouth with his tongue.

_When I am with you _

_there's no reason to pretend_

_that when I am with you, I feel flames again_

It was enough to make him scream. Lust was raging with the element of sexual tension, raging so that his hand moved of its own accord as it slipped Matsubusa's pants yet lower onto his thin, feminine hips. It was then that the fact became glaringly obvious that he hadn't been wearing anything underneath them. A slight bulge pressed against his own growing erection, and that was enough.

The storm, too, seemed to be on the verge of climax. Lightning flashed in all directions, rain nearly shattered the window. Thunder roared closely, as if the storm had been attracted by the events unfolding in that small apartment. He could feel his heart pry at the bars of his ribcage as his body began to get limper, as if he was simply drained of energy from the intimacy in the air.

_Just put me inside you_

_I would never, ever leave_

There was a breaking point then, for both their manic kissing and their willpower. He was warm now, yes, but still, the fever made his body bone dry and exhausted. And the last time Aogiri checked, sex wasn't the best cure for illness.

The result was merely a kiss to his burning forehead as the other man curled against his body.

Sleep came too quickly.

_Just put me inside you_

_I would never, ever leave you._


End file.
